1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the absorption/isolation of vibrations in internal combustion engines, and is more particularly directed to absorbing/isolating harmonic vibrations between a connecting rod/bearing cap assembly or crank shaft main bearing assembly and the crankshaft of an internal combustion engine.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
U.S. Pat. No. 5,517,957 discloses a device for damping torsional vibrations in a drive train connected to an internal combustion engine and is incorporated herein by reference. However, the '957 reference to Wagner et al. is complicated and expensive to manufacture, is bulky and is located further away from the source of the vibrations. U.S. Pat. No. 4,617,884 also discloses a torsional vibration isolator and is incorporated herein by reference. The '884 reference to Allen et al. discloses a resilient coupling 12 to isolate the flywheel from the crank shaft. Here again, vibrations isolation is attempted far away from the source of the vibrations, requires a custom crankshaft/flywheel configuration and is expensive to manufacture.
The isolators of the prior art suffer from the drawback that they can not be simply incorporated into conventional internal combustion engine designs, are costly, heavy, bulky and are located far from the source of the vibrations. The instant invention is believed to alleviate all of the drawbacks of the prior art isolators with a simple inexpensive design.